Many educational institutions offering IT curriculum are beginning to understand the importance of focusing on the administrative and managerial aspects of IT training. With outsourcing a regular occurrence in the industry and the popularity of open source technology on the rise, many colleges and universities have recently overhauled their IT programs to include additional curriculum related to these important facets of the IT world.

Outsourcing is a necessity for many businesses who are either not large enough to house a complete IT department or cannot find qualified individuals to hire for large scale, multilevel IT tasks, such as software installations, client server monitoring and local area or wide area network security. The reason outsourcing has become such a major issue for many of these companies has to do with the quality of services rendered and the economic implications of not being familiar with the dollar value of the work performed. The problem of IT department managers outsourcing specific tasks as a means of avoiding having to gain at least a rudimentary understanding of them can have disastrous consequences on productivity and the bottom line.

Recognizing the need for training in the area of outsourcing has led many colleges and universities to promote outsourcing related coursework to a position of prominence in their overall administrative IT degree programs.
Open source technology can be a godsend for many industries yet almost always presents major problems for IT administrators, especially those who must monitor an environment where open source and commercial technologies coexist. Licensing issues and the tendency for open source programs to be modified extensively can wreak havoc on system fluidity and make the job of managing multiple platforms difficult.

Integration strategies for IT administrators are a type of training that many in the industry feel is long overdue. Educational institutions are beginning to see the need for such training and, although it is not yet covered as in-depth as outsourcing strategies, many have begun offering it as non-required curriculum.
Changes in the IT landscape are quick to find their way into educational programs that are currently producing the next generation of IT managers and administrators. In an industry that changes from week to week, it's become a necessity.